


Now That All You Have Is All You Need

by asuninside, ZigZagLurkSwag (fadafordqt)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-06-24 08:10:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuninside/pseuds/asuninside, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadafordqt/pseuds/ZigZagLurkSwag
Summary: Sometimes there's a learning curve to being okay.





	Now That All You Have Is All You Need

PODFIC

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[Here](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2018/Now%20That%20All%20You%20Have%20Is%20All%20You%20Need%20Final.mp3)

 

 

Though the house is old and black and high atop a hill, it does not loom. It perches, watches. A silent guardian above the tangle of streets and homes that wend and wander and slot together to shape the sleepy village of Bells.

 

The house belonged to the late Elena. His silent guardian. His friend.

 

And now? It's his. It's theirs.

 

And it's strange. For a house to change hands like a fistful of coins. Hand to hand, purpose to purpose. But coins are all more or less the same. Houses are different. They have lives, have stories.

 

He clutches his box of comics tighter to his chest. He has stories too. Stories that are meant to pass hands. Stories that will carry traces of her to everyone who reads them.

 

"Gee!"

 

Gerard starts and peers around for the source of the shout. He doesn't have to look very far, because a moment later it smacks right into him.

 

He nearly drops the comics, managing to keep the box upright with a less-than-graceful squawk and scramble.

 

"Frank!" He yelps. "What the fuck?!" Because really, what the fuck? The box doesn't have a lid and that shit is in alphabetical order, okay. Littering the walkway with them is not an option.

 

Frank arms are in a vice grip around him and it's a mystery how he's managing it while moving around so much it feels like he's trying to vibrate out of his skin.

 

"The _garden_ , Gee! You gotta see the garden!"

 

Frank unwraps himself from Gerard's torso and reaches out a hand instead, which Gerard takes gratefully. He doesn't remind Frank that he's seen the garden before. Why dampen the joy? He smiles, and while it's tinged blue-grey with grief around the edges, at least it's real. "Okay, Frank. Show me."

 

*

 

It really is spectacular.

 

Frank leads him up the hill and through the gilded iron gate, takes them on a brief detour to the front porch to deposit the box of comics. Then around the west corner of the house, down the side, through a weird half-shadowed alley where the paint chips and the dusty red of the original brick shows through. The alley opens onto a plot of tall, golden grass that Frank trips through happily, while Gerard (less happily) follows dutifully behind him, keeping one wary eye out for ticks.

 

Though really, any tick willing to penetrate the fortress of his jeans, socks, boots, tee-shirt, hoodie, and leather jacket just for a taste of his blood is probably worth meeting. Gerard can respect dedication. Achievement of one's goals should be celebrated.

 

He smiles at the mental image of a tick graciously accepting a bouqet and a merit medal and almost runs Frank over when he stops suddenly. "Frank what-" and then he sees it. The small grassland has ended abruptly and deposited them in a world of green that startles him into silence.

 

The contrast between the garden and the house itself is almost comical. Elena had wanted a home to suit her, and she had gotten her wish. It's all turrets and pointed arches shrouded in black paint that falls away in the weathered places in a way that makes the whole structure look somewhat like a widowed crone whose shawl keeps slipping from her shoulders.

 

A flying buttress or two wouldn't look out of place, Gerard thinks, and there's almost certainly a gargoyle stowed away in some corner of the house. He'll have to remember to go hunting for it. It's utterly _her_ and that makes it utterly him.

 

But if the house is standing at attention, the land that surrounds it is lying spreadeagle.

 

It _sprawls_ . Out and out and _out_ in a wash of unending color.

 

"I didn't know October could _be_ this green," Frank says, wide-eyed. He starts almost reverently down one of the rows, taking it all in as he walks.

 

Gerard follows him at a snail's pace, crouching every few feet to examine a leaf or a vine. His fingers itch for a pencil. Or several dozen colored pencils. He's never had much interest in plants, except for maybe Audrey II, because come on, she's a badass. But plants of the non-carnivorous variety? He's not even sure of the names of everything in front of him and he involuntarily lets out a little noise of distress because he's clearly been missing out. But there's no time like this time to make up for lost time. He has more of a black thumb than a green one, and Frank's not exactly a botanist, but if his eyes are shining anything like Frank's, this garden will live.

 

*

 

Moving in is one thing; staying in is quite another. The inheritance keeps them afloat, but Frank still works basically full-time; has too much energy not to. Oftentimes Gerard doesn't catch more than a glimpse of him during the day, a blur of bright skin and brighter eyes dashing out the door with a guitar slung over its shoulder. There's been an renaissance of sorts in the local music scene, always someone in need of a session guitarist or a trained ear. He's full of light and thriving.

 

Gerard is...not. Quite. He's content, certainly, but not at ease, can't quite seem to give himself over to the fierce, bone-deep joy that Frank radiates. It's only natural, he supposes. He lost, Frank gained. But Gerard gained too. He reminds himself every day. Just when his thoughts begin to drift into shadow, he trips over Frank's shoe or catches a glimpse of ginger-glazed tempeh while choosing a lunchtime yogurt.

 

The days pass, some like seconds, some like years. He paints and he writes and he sketches and paints some more. He accumulates several workspaces in each wing of the house, and that suits him. He wanders from room to room, humming, thinking, sometimes listening for ghosts, more often steering clear. The picking up and putting down. The looking and the leaving.

 

One day Frank comes home one evening to find Gerard perched on the window seat, wrapped in a black bathrobe, looking for all the world like a raven floating on the edge of a sleep-dreary world. Not sad, just a little lost. Frank hugs him for a long moment, warm cheek against Gerard's neck where his pulse flutters, monarch-like. He rubs Gerard's arm and his back, slow, soothing circles.

 

Then he stands, plucks a book from the nearest shelf and deposits it on Gerard's lap (well, balances it on his the knees still drawn to his chest) disappears, comes back with a mug of coffee. A bit of the light comes back to Gerard's eyes. "For me?"

Frank chuckles. "Yes, dumbass, for you, but it's a bribe. You can have it if you follow me."

Gerard looks momentarily foreboding, but then shrugs, uncurls, gets to his feet. "Okay," he says, "Let's go."

 

When they end up in the garden, Gerard isn't surprised. It's stunning as ever, the small string of trees have given themselves completely over to autumn now, blaze of red and persimmon and burnished gold where the late-afternoon light rests. He studies them, sips his coffee, savors its sharpness, and almost doesn't notice when Frank slips a parcel into his empty hand. He looks down curiously, and nearly drops the mug. It's messily made and it's been a while, but Gerard recognizes a joint when he sees one. He stares at Frank, hurt, confused, _hurt_.

"Frankie?" he squeaks. "I- why would you-?"

"Lavender," Frank says simply, and hands him a matchbox.

 

So, they smoke. It's weird and floral, but the scent is sweet and the motion is soothing. He's always liked to watch smoke. The tendrils are wispy and linger on the air, low-hanging clouds above an oasis.

 

Frank leads him to a corner of the garden Gerard has not yet explored. It's so vast it seems unearthly, like it shouldn't be able to exist here, behind a dilapidated manor high on a hill on the outskirts of a grey, lonely town.

 

And the herb garden is a small wonder in itself. He dwells on it long after the lavender has burned away. He goes to the lending library for a small stack of books on medicinal herbs and spends days immersed in them in the shade of a crabapple tree, smoking and crunching the warm-bitter fallen fruit.

 

For years, Gerard has been operating under the belief that being clean and sober means he will forever be simply himself, nothing to change his composition, no way to metamorphose. But now? There's passionflower to calm, safflower to banish doldrums, damiana to heighten dreams. There's mint tea for stomach aches and camomile for sleep. No cravings, no dependency. Small wonder, little gift.

 

*

 

Time moves languidly. Not a slow drudge of days, but an easy bleeding, one into another. The house. Dark falls sooner and the house grows brighter. Frank cleans out the fireplace on Sunday afternoon and now it's ever-burning. Gerard loves the sound of it, crackle and hush of wood breaking and falling against itself. He hums to the tune of the burning and the scratch of his pen murmurs along, an-almost harmony. Despite the slow drip of days, the month ends abruptly. Frank doesn't need to work on his birthday, but he does anyway, comes home in the early afternoon grinning broadly and chattering about the set he'd played for the primary school's parade. He's covered in bits of orange streamer and Gerard looks at him and laughs.

 

A frost is iminent. They venture out into the cold sunshine and gather all they can of leeks, carrots, chard, sweet potatoes and whatever else they find. Frank hauls in the two biggest pumpkins, swaggers through the back door with one under each arm, looking delighted with himself.

 

"What are we even going to do with all this stuff?" Gerard asks, incredulously. He's scooping the guts from his pumpkin, but he's eyeing the heaps of dusty vegetables rendering the kitchen counter practically invisible to the naked eye with some trepidation.

 

"Veggie stir fry, motherfucker!" Frank crows, and pelts Gerard with a seed from his own pumpkin. It's sticks to Gerard's forehead and pumpkin carving devolves an all-out war that culminates in a high-speed chase through the house.

 

*

"Why don't we eat this all the time?" Gerard moans through a mouthful of brown sugar squash. "This shit is fucking _ambrosial_."

Frank giggles. "Thanks, but do me a favor and don't quit your day job to become a food critic anytime soon."

Gerard puts on a pout and is determined to keep there, but then Frank slips him a forkful of some other magical combination of plants and spices and, well, there goes that plan.

 

*

 

The house is too out of the way, and frankly, too fucking sinister for any sweet-starved merrymakers to show up at their door. Gerard laments the fact a little, he likes picking out the creatives among the masses, the kids who dress like historical figures or characters from the outskirts of the mainstream, and slipping them something extra. He's a firm believer in encouraging the outsiders.

 

But there aren't any outsiders, just Gerard and Frank and the jack-o-lanterns they managed to finish while various elements of their dinner baked and simmered.

 

There's a strange sort of stillness, after the liveliness of the afternoon. The laughter is still there, deep inside them, but something else replaces it nearer the surface.

 

Gerard ambles off to one of his work stations and returns with a card, looking a little sheepish. "It's an I.O.U." He admits. "I'm working on a comic for you, FrankenFrank, just a few pages, but I haven't figured out quite how to capture your mannerisms when they're grafted onto a monster and-" And then Frank is crowding him into a corner and covering his mouth with his own. The card flutters to the floor.

  
*

The master bedroom is...unorthodox to say the least. It's perfectly round, nearly windowless and has walls the deep crimson-brown of dried blood. It looks kind of like a small cathedral, if said cathedral gained sentience for long enough to find inspiration in a Fanu novel and decorate itself accordingly. The goth cousin of rooms. It's fitting, really. Basically every member of Way family has been that cousin to someone or other at some point in time.

 

They untangle briefly and Gerard putters around lighting candles (pillar style, currant-colored, "For ambiance, Frank!") while Frank strips down. When he's done, Gerard feels rather like he's inside of a huge animal heart, all hot and pulsing and alive. He stands still, taking it in, until he hears a whispered, "C'mere."

Gerard turns to Frank and sees that he's undressed, body and soul. The shapes adorning his skin seem to be dancing in the flickering light, shimmering along every curve of him. His eyes are dark, very dark. Gerard falls into him, murmurs and groans as Frank paws at his shirt and the clasp of his jeans. "Off, off," he urges so softly that Gerard feels the words more than hears them. He complies, and then warm skin to warm skin, a rocking and a gasping, bodies moving together in silent little harmonies. Gerard turns his head to give Frank access to his neck and is struck by the silhouette of them. One body of two, one light built from every light pulsing.

 

Frank watches Gerard watching their shadows. His mouth is slack, lips red and sweet as winesap apples. The tiny porthole of a window above the bed is open wide and the midnight air pours in, scent of burning leaves and soil on the precipice of frost. They luxuriate in it, in each other. The veil is thin on Hallow's Eve, Gerard feels it in every inch of him, and he knows Frank does too. The nearness of the dead is an intoxicant, it reminds him to _live_.

 

They're different parts of themselves like this. Sex turns him inward, quiets his mind. Frank doesn't get any quieter, but he grows focused, furrowed-brow, bitten lips, dark eyes half-lidded, like he's searching for something beautiful slightly out of his reach. When he enters Gerard, the lines of his face shift almost imperceptibly, but Gerard sees. What he was looking for, he's found.

 

"Frank, _Frankie_ , Frank," Gerard chants. His breath is coming fast and faster with each roll of Franks hips, each press that reaches somewhere deep in him.

  
"I love you," Frank grits out. His arms are braced on either side of Gerard's body, and his face is shining with sweat. He thrusts again and again, breathing harshly, gazing down at Gerard through the hair falling against his face. "Fuck, _fuck-_  Gerard. I love you, I _love_ you, I-" His voice seems to shiver and shimmer, the ghost of a word in the breath of a sigh. It stretches out, the split-second aching breath of space between here and there, together and apart, all shallow breaths and fanned-out lashes.

And then Gerard is keening and Frank quakes as the pleasure washes over him in warm, dark waves. A midnight in a moment, where everything is still. A fragment of everything they are and all that they mean. They collapse against each other, fever-flushed and trembling, and everywhere, all around them, there is light.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Walls by The Red Paintings


End file.
